THE REAL AND THE IDEAL. 317 



Miller's next letter is not dated, but it was evidently 

 written at Cromarty soon after the preceding. 



' Ever since I knew myself I have hovered on the 

 verge of two distinct worlds ; the one a gay creation 

 of happy animated dreams, the other a dull scene of 

 cold untoward realities. Into the former I have often 

 been drawn by inclination ; into the latter, dragged by 

 necessity. I have enjoyed so much in the one, and 

 suffered so much in the other, that I have sometimes 

 been disposed to regard them as the opposing scales in 

 which good and evil were to be doled out to me by 

 Providence. Had I indulged, however, in so fanciful a 

 theory, a few events of late occurrence would have over- 

 turned it : the real scene has begun to present an 

 aspect not very unlike that of the imaginary ; and that 

 I should be held not unworthy of the notice of such as 

 Miss Dunbar, is a circumstance which I deem char- 

 acteristic of the change. 



' Your kind intention of introducing me to the notice 

 of Professor Wilson has, I believe, been anticipated by 

 Principal Baird. ... A Mr Gordon, Secretary to the 

 Highland Society, who himself writes for Blaclcwood, 

 made me a similar offer ; but I declined both, on the 

 ground that I did not consider myself as yet free of the 

 craft of authorship. The truth is, I am unwilling to 

 convert my literary amusements into mere matters of 

 business ; and I am afraid that, were J to set myself 

 down to write for money, I would soon learn to consider 

 them as such. Before I became a mason, I have spent 

 whole days in constructing arches, and in building 

 towers and houses, now, however, I seldom either 

 build or hew, except when I cannot help it. It would 

 be a sad matter were prose and verse to become but 

 half as irksome to me as building and hewing. Besides, 



